Welcome to the January edition of the Tournament Director Blog! The first issue of 2024 continues our tradition of highlighting news around the NAF tournament scene. Once again we present tournament-relevant content, give an outlook on upcoming events, and, most importantly, publish reports on a few recent tournaments. For this month’s edition, we cover the aptly named events Everwinter Snowbowl, Jinggle Bowl and Khornemas Bowl.
As always, if you want to contribute any content to this blog (e.g. a report of a recent tournament you visited or ran), reach out! Contact info are available on our NAF staff site.
Content
- NAF Chatter
1.1 2023 NAF Report
1.2 Online Travel Badges
1.3 Improvements to the Member Area
1.4 Presidential Election: Q&A session
1.5 Tournament Series 2024 Applications
1.6 Import NAF XML Data into Excel
1.7 Ethics Committee Kick-Off - Report: Everwinter Snowbowl II (by Melifaxis)
- Report: Jinggle Bowl (by Furbby)
- Report: Khornemas Bowl (by Drakenspear)
- Outlook
1. NAF Chatter
1.1. 2023 NAF Report
As every year, chief data cruncher Mike (sann0638) has prepared a summary and analysis of all that happened in the world of tournament Blood Bowl. Follow this direct link to the PDF document, or head to the NAF Report site to read up on all the stats. There you can also filter and revisit the data using the Tableau plugin, and see for yourself how 2023 stood out as the greatest year for Blood Bowl ever (until 2024 takes over that claim).
The NAF statistics page, which shows up-to-date summary data for all tournament matches ever played, has also undergone some updates and improvements. Historical performance of all races can now not only be filtered by years, but also by variants. I did some database cleansing, and the odd Imperial Nobility team played in 2018, or mismatched variant names are gone now.
When looking at the highest number of regular BB2020 tournament matches played in 2023, Volkajo came out on top with 176 games, crushing PeterD’s previous record. As he himself pointed out, he was aiming to offset this “serious waste of time, money and energy” and decided to donate 1 EUR for each touchdown and casualty he generated to a charity project called “Tiny Changes”. Together with opponents that contributed as well, this added up to more than 2100 EUR to this mental health cause!
Sprinter decided to honor this achievement with the following ballad:
In the realm of dice and chaos, behold the tale
Of Volkajo, Ladonia’s mirthful trailblazer, hailing from the German dale.
Grown on playstation, yet Fumbbl-snotlings in his heart,
In Blood Bowl’s embrace, he found his art.
Since 2020, his dice did roll,
A maestro of the pitch, with a jovial soul.
Across nations, he spread the cheer,
In England, Spain, and far and near.
“Best player from Ladonia,” they did proclaim,
At the Stress Cup, Olivier echoing his fame.
Volkajo runs around a coconut in hand
his Tomb Kings are feared in every land.
From Czech Republic to Italy’s charm,
Volkajo’s passion knew no harm.
In the dance of dice, he found his sway,
A true ambassador in every way.
A vino tinto never far
never shy to hit a post tourney bar.
“There’s the good way and the fun way,” he’d say,
Choosing joy’s path, come what may.
With laughter as anthem and joy as guide,
On the pitch of friendship, he stands side by side.
In the realm of BB, where friendships entwine,
Volkajo’s legacy, a testament so fine.
A record-breaker, in twenty twenty-three,
He outshone the lovely PeterD
In the clash of hundred seventy-six and the roll of dice,
Volkajo embraced the beauty, oh, how nice!
1.2 Online Travel Badges
In the October 2023 TD blog, I highlighted a ranking of the furthest travelled coaches and reviewed the patches the NAF handed out at the World Cup for tournaments visited various European nations.
Frequent NAF site visitors will have noticed that we now have similar online badges shown on the respective coach pages! These badges reflect the number of countries the respective coach has visited to attend a NAF approved Blood Bowl tournament. There are 6 tiers available. Thanks to cutting edge technology available to our organization, the badge will automatically update once you hit the next tier. Hover over the badge with the pointer of your human interface device to see the actual number and list of visited countries.
More badges could follow in the future. If you have ideas for additional achievements (and badge design) beyond the obvious “29 races played”, feel free to contact me!
1.3 Improvements to the Member Area
We keep on working to add new features and helpful information to the Member Area! Besides the above-mentioned upgrades to the NAF statistics page, display of tournament info, database clean-up, cookie and forwarding functionality (shout-out to Danny for help with the latter), we recently also added the option for tournament organizers to upload rulesets to the tournament entries as PDF or Word files. Many hosts are providing tournament information to participants in this format, often including images or complex formatting. As we would like to preserve these rulesets for later generations, and as externally hosted files eventually tend to disappear (unlike the NAF site, which is here to stay forever), this function should make everybody’s life easier.
Find an example how this looks on this page. Importantly, this can be applied retroactively. If you have hosted tournaments in the past and would like to add your document to a previous event, you can simply edit it and upload the respective file.
1.4 Presidential Election: Q&A session
The regularly scheduled election of the NAF president is ongoing right now, and with the retirement of current president Gaixo, four individuals from all over the globe have stepped up and are running for this position:
– Misterhobbs, USA
– Kfoged, UK
– Grant85, Canada
– Shirokov, Spain
Right now we are in the interviewing process. Use the opportunity to grill them all on the topics you find important (and Blood Bowl related)! The respective Questions&Answers section is available to all active NAF members here in the forum and will be open until January 28th, when the one-week voting period begins.
This is a once-in-a-lifetime (*) chance for you to influence and shape the future of the NAF. Make use of it!
(*) If you are a gold hamster; they don’t make it longer than two years.
1.5 Tournament Series 2024 Applications
A reminder that Tournament Series Organizers (TSOs) can now register their series on the NAF Forum, at least a few weeks prior to the first tournament. All relevant information for TSOs can be found on the NAF site, or by contacting Tournament Series Coordinator Topas via email (@thenaf.net), Discord or NAF Forum.
The official NAF Tournament Series program was initiated to encourage travelling and increase coach numbers in participating tournaments. However, it is not the only way to achieve this goal, and various communities have other means to award active coaches. Our friendly antipodes in New Zealand recently launched a new initiative: NAF100 and NAF200 trophies are awarded to coaches who have completed 100 or 200 NAF 11s tabletop games (minimum 50 or 100 in NZ, respectively). They can be collected at any tournament a qualified coach attends. While some Euro or US coaches would be able to pick one up in a year’s or two years’ time, it takes a bit longer down there to hit those milestones as Kiwi protection laws disallow having a tournament every week.
1.6 Import NAF XML Data into Excel
An increasing number of coaches are making use of the file upload function that the NAF site offers to automatically upload tournament data, instead of manually entering each match result. Many platforms such as SCORE, Tourplay, Tourma and others provide the function to export tournament data in the XML file format that is required for your this upload. Not all of them have a similarly convenient way to export this match data into Excel for further analysis.
If you would like to do exactly this and are not scared of downloading a macro-enabled Excel tool, download this file. With literally the push of a friendly button, any NAF compatible XML file can be imported into Excel and will display coach data and match results.
1.7 Ethics Committee Kick-Off
As announced in the last blog and elsewhere, the NAF has recently published a call for volunteers to bring an Ethics Committee to life. We got overwhelming feedback and surprisingly many applications. For me it was very interesting to see how many of our members deal with similar questions in their profession or other hobbies, and how many of them are willing to bring themselves in to help the community.
The choice was not easy, but the initial members will include, in alphabetical order, Mr_Frodo, Sundevil, Thibault, Ultor_KRK and Volkajo. As the committee takes on the various challenges, we will hopefully see more increased representation of the letter space from A to L.
This is an important step for our community, and to reiterate myself: it’s not about making Amazons gender neutral and renaming the game to Cuddle Bowl, it is about establishing better support structures for organizers, staff and coaches. Our wish is to keep up inclusivity, update our dusty code of conduct, tackle the rare cases of fraud, bullying, verbal and physical abuse and setup fair and transparent guidelines for disciplinary consequences.
2. Report: Everwinter Snowbowl II (by Melifaxis)
On Saturday, December 9, 2023, forty-eight Blood Bowl coaches gathered just outside of Boston, MA, in the United States for Everwinter Snowbowl II. For six of those coaches, this would be their very first NAF event! Thematically, the event used the Norsca weather and kick-off tables from Spike Magazine 14. In addition to medallions for the winners and generous prize support from Midgard Hobbies and Games of Derry, NH, each coach attending the event would go home with an Everwinter neoprene pitch designed by 3d6 Wargaming – usable for both Blood Bowl and Blood Bowl Sevens, as thanks for attending our NEBBN (North East Blood Bowl Network) event presented in conjunction with the fantastic folks at Wicked Dicey.
Friday night had featured the Warm-Up Throw Down, a Blood Bowl Sevens event to kick off a weekend of fun. Eighteen coaches did battle in the beloved variant and a shocking number of amateur Human and Goblin teams stormed the field. It would be the Humans that prevailed though, capturing the Champion (Wyld), Runner-Up (Grasshopper), Most Touchdowns (Wyld), and Most Brutal (Grasshopper) awards. The Goblins were left holding only the Stunty Cup (g-bread) while the Tomb Kings captured Best Painted (khalida487). Thanks to mechmage for running a fantastic event to start the weekend!
Saturday’s main event would be the fourteenth and final event of the 2023 NEBBN Tournament Series. The top eight coaches in the NEBBN rankings were all in attendance. The grouping was tight, and all eight coaches had the opportunity to capture a series win with the high attendance numbers driving the point value of the Snowbowl to the highest single value of the year. In addition, the hotly contested Top Stunty title was also up for grabs. Would it be the Goblins or Halflings that would prevail? This added a layer of excitement and more than a little anxiety to the air as NEBBN coaches talked about the various possibilities throughout the day.
For the Snowbowl, teams had been placed in four tiers giving some extra love to Goblins and Ogres in tier four; the two teams with the worst win percentages in NAF. In addition, as the tiers progressed, bonus passing skills were distributed to increase the number of times teams might choose to attempt and throw the ball. BB2020 has seen a marked decline in passing across many teams (I’m looking at you, Wildly Inaccurate) and with these extra skills, I hoped to encourage more dynamic play on the pitch. This is, after all, a parody of American football and not of rugby. The ball should be run as well as thrown downfield.
With an even number of coaches in attendance, my Goblins and I had to participate, and that proved challenging while running an event of this size. Luckily, I had done what preparation I could for this eventuality, including having brought along several orange “linesman” armbands and having asked several experienced coaches if they would help with rules queries that we might resolve them more quickly during play. My heartfelt thanks to lonewolfjackson, grimfoe, houseblackfyre, radugality, mechmage, g-bread, grasshopper, mgs, and titi33. Pairings were announced in the NEBBN Discord which was easily shared via QR code thanks to some quick thinking by egill. Things would not have run so smoothly without your generous assistance. Thank you all.
As the event unfolded, radugality also ran a game within the game for us where various FIRSTS would be called out for cheers from the group (First Triple Skulls, First Kill, First Successful Long Bomb, and the like). Sheets for each accolade could be claimed by the coach to first achieve each event and would be celebrated once more at the conclusion of the event.
The first round of play saw the improbable take place as my GCLU (Goblin Civil Liberties Union) squad ascended to Table 1 after soundly defeating GamingWithZoom’s Shambling Undead squad 3-0. I even gathered the first casualty of the event as my trained troll slammed Akhorne into the dirt on turn 1 killing him! The second round at the top table would see the GCLU square off against Ranzimus’s Khorne team who had won 2-0 in the prior round. The result was another shutout victory for the Goblins, this time by a score of 2-0. In the final round, I would square off against lonewolfjackson and his Lizardmen who were also undefeated after two rounds and who also had not yet allowed an opposition touchdown. Despite the best efforts of his dice to give my Goblins an improbable victory, his brilliant coaching was able to overcome misfortune after misfortune and even up the score at 1-1. We still had two turns remaining, but time in the round had expired. We got a late start as I handed out match slips and the like at the start of the round, and it would be unfair to press the issue and make the scoring attempt. I’ll leave him to wonder how the dice would have landed on the one turn attempt. I know Nuffle. I’m fairly confident I would have eaten the Goblin!!
With that draw, JLeav and his Old World Alliance squad ascended from table two with a third straight win to become our tournament Champions! Silvageargrinder and his undefeated Orcs were our Runner Up by the slimmest of margins. The Stunty Cup honors went to yours truly and Most Touchdowns and Most Brutal were awarded to pauladin and Matman respectively. Best Appearance was captured by Lyssatra and his Insane Squig Posse Goblin team. Below are the final standings:
We did hit a few snags along the way. One of the food trucks scheduled to arrive for the lunch crowd did not show up, and the hotel had accidentally double-booked a significant amount of space. We graciously agreed to play two buildings over in the Hyatt House, and the United States Navy was allowed to keep their booked square footage. I wasn’t about to torpedo their event! The Black Knights held no such reservation though, delivering a stinging defeat to the Midshipmen (17-11) in their annual Army-Navy collegiate football contest. More than a few football fans and soldiers took note of this beloved game of ours throughout the day. With the missing food truck, the long lunch line delayed the start of the second round, but in the end it was the right call to make. People needed to eat. True to form, the community rolled with the hand Nuffle dealt them and just played some Blood Bowl.
Overall, the feedback on the event has been very positive. I am indebted to everyone for coming out and joining us, especially those who traveled across the country to join us like houseblackfyre, lonewolfjackson, and skullbunny. You can look for further event coverage from NoBribeFoul on YouTube. Steve made a fantastic video summarizing the weekend events. Once again, I am very grateful to everyone who gave me an assist up to and during the event, especially the folks at Wicked Dicey and 3d6. Thank you Korey, Miles, Justin, and Brad! I’m looking forward to a couple weeks off before our 2024 NEBBN Tournament Series begins! As of right now, we’ve got nineteen amazing events planned as part of the series including our first ever NAF tournaments in Vermont and Maine. All of you NAF Barnstormers should absolutely come join us for some fun and to check off eight different US states.
Most of all, be sure to look for Everwinter Snowbowl III next December!
3. Report: Jinggle Bowl (by Furbby)
The club “La Torre de Daus” (The Tower of Dice) is one of the largest wargames clubs in Catalonia, and like any respectable wargames club, we have a Blood Bowl division that has been the proud bane of the club for nearly a decade. Traditionally, for years, the club organized several “internal tournaments” exclusively for members, the most notable being our annual Christmas tournament, featuring a special Christmas theme each year. Since I took control of the Blood Bowl division two years ago, the tournaments have been open to any player who has the guts and bravery to participate.
After a modest first edition of the tournament last year (celebrated on a Thursday), the second edition of this annual Christmas tournament of the club “La Torre de Daus”, consistently named Jinggle Balls, aimed to be even bigger and better.
Faced with the challenge of organizing the largest and most entertaining tournament in our club’s history, I partnered with my usual partner in crime, Ignacio, aka Raoul_Loufbery. Together, we crafted the tournament rules. Aiming to enhance the fun, the tournament was played in squads of three, with the special rule that only one team from each tier could be played in each squad, and no star player could participate in two teams of the same squad. The only exception, out of our love for stunties, was that tier limitations could be disregarded if the entire squad played as stunties.
Not only were tiers and teams introduced in the rules, but to add some spice, and in the spirit of Christmas, the winter weather table and the Norse kick-off table were utilized. Moreover, Santa arrived late to the tournament (or the three wise kings came early, open to interpretation), and the first ‘1’ rolled when arguing the call of the referee did not result in the coach’s expulsion.
Thanks to these rules, and after great efforts to expand the player base as much as possible, 12 squads, totaling 36 players, met in the midst of the Christmas season to play Blood Bowl. This was a record for our modest club, but hopefully just the first of many large tournaments in our future.
The registration system was very strict, aiming to be as fair as possible to everyone. For this reason, only players who paid and sent their payment confirmation to our email were eligible to participate in the tournament.
It’s worth noting that the tournament was intended to use Tourma software, but our friend Jazmin volunteered to participate as the third organizer, utilizing his software and managing the IT aspects during the tournament.
Several drop-outs (unfortunately common) on the last day nearly jeopardized the tournament, but we managed to fill the gaps, in all cases, thanks to the same drop-outs offering replacements. Surprisingly, but gratifyingly, everyone was able to participate in the end.
All matches were organized by table numbers, as keeping 12 teams together without any table organization would have been impossible. The match-ups were viewable on the PC screen, but to simplify things, the organizers announced them aloud each round. Our voices weren’t very happy the next morning, but this method worked perfectly.
Though the first round was scheduled to start at 9:30, players were able to begin earlier as we had announced on the forum. Most players finished their matches within the 2-hour limit and enjoyed a cold beer from our minibar.
Surprisingly, my very own “Toxic Team” performed exceptionally well in the first two morning matches. However, the team SantaKO, formed by Josepe, Jazmin, and Dardorl, ultimately proved too strong and overwhelmed everyone.
In line with the team spirit of the tournament, the prizes were for squads (except for the individual victor one, who won the NAF trophy). True to our philosophy of cheating and ‘faking it till you make it,’ the most coveted prize was the “Most Fouls Squad” award.
Ultimately, SantaKO comfortably won the Winning Squad and Most TD titles. However, the true victors were “La Vieja Guardia,” the stunty winners, and the team with the most fouls and casualties (an astonishing 63 casualties, mostly from fouling). Despite these two teams monopolizing all the prizes, the individual winner was not from either team. Major, one of the most successful players in the Barcelona community, clinched the prize.
This tournament was very successful and my personal favorite. The feedback from all players was overwhelmingly positive, and we are eagerly preparing for our summer tournament. What’s certain is that Jinggle Balls has now become an established tournament and a must-attend event for Barcelona coaches every Christmas.
4. Report: Khornemas Bowl (by Drakenspear)
Khornemas Bowl is a relatively new tradition in Ottawa-Gatineau; a Christmas tournament with a mutation theme. Lower tiers are encouraged in the pack, and everyone gets a free mutation (Claw, monstrous mouth or horns) on a vanilla lineman. Multizone: Jeux and Comics in Gatineau, a hop, skip and a jump away from Canada’s Parliament Buildings (okay a 5 minute drive), hosted us. The tournament shifted to a pairings event this year and had 28 participants.
Khornemas Bowl uses its own custom (Loner 5+) star players and runs a painting event for these star players or “models for whom Khorne would approve”. In an effort to boost its use, a Rat Ogre inspired Juggs/Claw/MB/Animal Savagery star player was dropped to 200k from 240k this year and subsequently became the most popular star at Khornemas with two elf teams even taking him. Top star from last year, Popkhorne McGee, was a MV 4, AV7+ sneaky git/dirty player but likely due to his weak stats, wasn’t taken excessively.
Seanh1986 and AviD (Team Champions) 
Meerkul and NotThePornGuy (Team Runner Up) 
Runbad, of Twitch streaming fame, (Most CAS, because Khornemas)
The tournament was hotly contested, with no pairing dominating the proceedings. 2024 Eurobowl Team Canada Captain, seanh1986 and his partner AviD, sat at the top table though from Round 2 on. However, Team Eye of Nuffle managed to make the podium and nearly dethrone them with Team Canada member Meerkul and his partner in crime, NotThePornGuy, using their podcast powers to draw the final round.
The tournament has boasted another successful test run for the Amorical Cup tournament system. You can see a screenshot of the system output below. We look forward to hosting the Amorical Cup with this great system, designed by seanh1986, in Canada’s capital in June!
Next year, the Rat Ogre star will likely land at 220k, and I was illuminated to the fact that I made a major fluffy faux pas: having only seven stars when the sacred number of Khorne is eight!! Additional star reinforcements required!!
If you want to hear more about the tournament you can listen to the latest episode of the Eye of Nuffle where Meerkul and NotThePornGuy recount their games, discuss their builds and interview the winner Seanh1986!
5. Outlook
In February, we are expecting 70 tournaments in 18 different countries. Including some well known ones, such as Waterbowl in Manchester (where I will be as well), the West Coast Quake in California and the Turncoat in Belgium. Turncoat was mentioned in our latest Newsletter, where we highlight the associated charity event for disabled children and the lottery.
Expect snow and winter weather when attending the classic Bowl des Neiges near the French Alps or the Canadian Open in Ontario. But in this regard, nothing beats the True Open in Northern Finland, just a few kilometers away from the middle of nowhere. Games are truly played outside in the open!